There have been a few Microsoft Azure certifications for awhile now, and on October 27, 2015 Microsoft added another with the Designing and Implementing Cloud Data Platform Solutions (70-473) exam. Passing this exam will earn you the Microsoft Specialist: Designing and Implementing Cloud Data Platform Solutions certification. This is a Microsoft Azure certification centered around SQL Server databases in the cloud; from Azure SQL Database to SQL Server running inside a Virtual Machine.

Certification Target Audience

Being focused on SQL Server and relational databases, this exam and certification is definitely targeted more towards those who build and/or manage data platform solutions with Microsoft SQL Server. This certification will test and validate your skills in designing and implementing Microsoft data platforms solutions. This includes SQL Server running on a Virtual Machine in Azure, as well as Azure SQL Databases (the PaaS SQL Database solution within Microsoft Azure.)

Skills Measured

Here’s a high level list of the skills measured and exam objectives tested on this exam. The percentages represent how much of the exam questions will be focused on each of the high level exam objective areas.

Training Material

At the time of writing this the exam is still fairly new, so there isn’t a huge amount of training materials dedicated towards passing his specific exam. Fortunately there are a few training options available to help get you the skills necessary to pass this exam (70-473) and achieve the Microsoft Specialist: Designing and Implement Cloud Data Platform Solutions certification.

There are a few companies that offer IT Training on Azure topics, but there still isn’t much on this specific exam if the way of paid training either. However, there is 1 paid course from Opsgility. You can find more information about the course from Opsgility at the following link:

Hopefully these training material links help. Also, remember to look through the Microsoft Azure and SQL Server documentation for content that covers the different exam objectives. The above videos / courses will give you tons of information, especially the 3 day course from Opsgility, but you’ll still want to do some studying using multiple sources of information to help drill in and retain everything. Like any of the other Microsoft certification exams, this exam does cover quite a lot of material.

Practice Exams

In addition to using multiple training / study material sources for learning all about the exam objectives, there’s another very important companion when studying for any certification exam. This is a good practice test that will really help prepare you for taking the real exam.

MeasureUp one of the leading practice test vendors for Microsoft certification exams, and even though the 70-473 Designing and Implementing Cloud Data Platform Solutions exam is still relatively new (at the time of writing this) they already have a practice test available for purchase.

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Posted by Chris Pietschmann

Chris is a 6-time Microsoft MVP and has nearly 20 years of experience building enterprise systems both in the cloud and on-premises. He is also a Certified Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect (both MCSD and MCSE), a Microsoft Certified Trainer, and self proclaimed Cloud Advocate. He has a passion for technology and sharing what he learns with others to help enable them to learn faster and be more productive.